


a book of matches

by Anonymous



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: (But not between the Sith), Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lace, Rule 63, Sith wearing heart print boxers, curse you Freud, here be consent issues, that said when things happen or at least are attempted rather than merely being proposed, there is poorly thought out consent of sorts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 05:10:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14205786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Palpatine grapples with the question of sexuality, with some input from Plagueis. It is not a straightforward matter.





	a book of matches

**Author's Note:**

> this is a weird combination of exceedingly self-indulgent but also plot concepts I don't especially like...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _a job, described ~ bedding_ Jocasta, _goosefleshed ~ pinks ~ party conversation_

"Well? Go on--"

Palpatine hissed back, "He's neutralized. It would be more trouble than it's worth to kill him!"

"Yes, he's neutralized. I assumed you'd want..."

"Want _what_?"

"Lady Sidious, he works giving women what they want--I assure you no one would begrudge you..."

"What they..." the human repeated, mystified. "He's _unconscious_. He's hardly going to give me anything."

"Ah. Yes. An oversight," Plagueis swallowed hard. "Perhaps some other time. Or do you prefer women?"

"Do I prefer--what do you think you're getting at?" Palpatine stared skeptically at the Muun.

"We are not Jedi, my apprentice," Damask declaimed. "There is no need for you to be celibate."

"I--but what point would it serve? Bane instituted a rule of two, and what would you expect me to--I don't want a child, much less _his_ "

"The act is generally pleasurable, and needn't result in reproduction," Plagueis rebuked.

The human gritted her teeth, and ground out, "Perhaps, as you said, some other time. Now, are we going to continue?"

* * *

Palpatine read. She always did. History, and even the fictions beings told of themselves, were almost as telling as genuine interaction. 

She also bought new undergarments, because the ones she had had were wearing, and had been purchased not by her but ordered by a droid under direction from Cosinga to prevent his daughter from using them in some sort of rebellion by seduction of inappropriate men. (They were not comfortable.) Mostly her new things were more practical than otherwise. Thankfully some women in the galaxy insisted on undergarments fit for exercising in.

But she found something else, too, deep wine red in an imitation silk made from trees, and covered in intricately wrought lace of a geometric motif. It was an object of beauty, and after all it might happen that she would be called upon in some context to demonstrate that she wore something more suited to an aristocrat than exercise wear.

One of the thinkers she read was convinced that nearly all personal conflicts arose from the matter of sex, and complexes beginning with a fixation on the phallus and/or one's parents. In a fit of something like disgust at herself and willing to accept whatever criticism she found, Palpatine decided, then, that she would seduce Plagueis (no matter that she had no certain idea how one went about that), having no feelings beyond incandescent hatred towards Cosinga, and after all soon to possess her own sword and already a deft hand in practice.

She meticulously trimmed the red curls between her legs, because surely that was what women did, and wore the red lace into the Muun's bedroom while Plagueis was showering after some sort of minor lab accident. She had failed to account for the fact that, having grown up on Mygeeto, Damask kept her bedroom at a decidedly cool 15.5°C*, not a comfortable temperature for a human in only undergarments, and shivered. Gooseflesh rose on her limbs.

Plagueis returned, clad only in shorts printed with false color images of anatomically correct hearts, and muttering to herself under her breath about cell walls, apparently. She didn't react to her apprentice but pulled on a long nightshirt with the monogram IGBC and ridiculously loud plaid flannel pants.

"I--" she exclaimed as she turned around to see the human arrayed on the bed, all freckled pale skin and dark lace. "What are you doing, Sidious?"

Before the modicum of courage it required abandoned her, Palpatine undid the clasp on the lace bra and revealed her breasts to the Muun. An instant later, she wondered if this was actually titillating for Damask--it seemed Muuns developed mammary tissue only in association with reproduction, so perhaps this gesture did not have the same societal significance.

Plagueis, averting her eyes, stared at the corner of the room as if asking some supernatural entity for strength. With a renewed dignity, she asked, "Are you certain?"

The human fixed her eyes vacantly on her mentor but nodded resolutely. Damask gave a half-sigh and returned her clothes to a bin in her closet before lying down beside her on the bed. Palpatine's body temperature was typically lower than the human mean by the better part of a degree, and Muuns ran yet cooler, but still far warmer than the room air where they happened to touch.

Damask looked at her torso, surveying it rather clinically, and frowned. "This isn't going to work, is it? Certainly I like my rooms cool, but even I don't lie around in...nothing." She rose again and went to the thermostat. 

Of course, the temperature did not respond instantly to the adjustment, and pure instinctual heat conservation induced Palpatine to twine her arms around the Muun as soon as she was accessible on the bed, even though this was probably not seductive in the least.

"Oh, Sidious," said the older Sith, but sounding relatively... motherly. Damask interlaced her fingers in the human's hair, so foreign to Muuns, and played with it.

A shiver ran through her and Palpatine mentally cursed the thinker for describing such complexes. The situation was bizarrely intimate, feeling the rhythm of the Muun's hearts through only her skin, and she was very uncertain she wished to carry through with her plan.

"I've never been with a human before," Plagueis said carelessly, and moved to shift the lace at Palpatine's waistband off her hip. She froze. She had failed to anticipate fully what the situation would entail, would demand of her.

"Oh," said Damask, in a sort of dismayed surprise, as Sidious willed her muscles to move, to allow her to climb off the bed and ran to her room in shame, arms crossed over her bare chest.

* * *

"If it's all the same to you, I don't especially like ornate dresses," Palpatine said uncomfortably, a week later, "I'm not a wedding cake." The two Sith were standing between displays of very ornate dresses indeed.

"I never said you were," Damask said flippantly. "But we will find you a dress for the occasion. And someone."

Her apprentice ignored the latter addition, and instead pointed out, "You don't typically wear dresses."

"True. Muun fashions have not historically included dresses per se, and people who make dresses do not often cater to our forms." Damask strode into the neighboring section and ran fingers over something in a subtle, old-fashioned pink. 

It was not... excessively ornate. The lower half of the skirt had a subtle tone-on-tone matte damask of large rose-like blooms. The shape was an odd mingling of styles, each section leading to different expectations about the others. The sleeves had the only contrast detail, in a loose crimson band at the end, and the neck had a panel of a subtle arched lace pattern above the fabric portion of the garment.

* * *

Said occasion was some gala she was not wholly clear on the purpose of. Damask wore crimson robes with padded details on the shoulder. The fabric felt very soft when she brushed against it. But Plagueis had some purpose in mind and went off to achieve it, leading the Sith Apprentice to occupy herself as she had so often at Cosinga's events.

She spoke with some disinterest to a few aliens, pointedly ignoring a human man who kept staring at her. But they made poor conversational partners, since she kept choosing ones with odd agendas. The Nemoidian was desperately preoccupied with the weather, although she seemed to be actually concerned for some remote location where she had investments in an agricultural operation. The particular Umbaran she had talked to couldn't be stopped from critiquing the fashion of some people Sidious had never even heard of but surmised were celebrities. The seated Kaminoan was not fluent in Basic and interspersed remarks she didn't quite understand with requests to pronounce various words. 

After she pronounced "determined" a third time and attempted to politely dismiss him, Plagueis appeared again at her side. The protege looked up and caught sight of a young human woman standing by the wall and browsing through a magazine with a speeder on the cover. Never mind the faux pas of reading at a party; perhaps that was someone she could actually talk to. (Or perhaps not, true: it might be that it was the only reading material presenting itself.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *roughly 60°F for my fellow Americans
> 
> (not that this story is prone to attract language learners but uh, if you wanna hear something pronounced? forvo. it's a thing)


End file.
